What, precisely, is the relationship between legality and morality? Does legal validity rest upon moral validity? Are legal obligations moral obligations? For some years now schools of jurisprudential Naturalism and Positivism have become increasingly ambiguous in their responses to these questions. Olsen and Toddington argue that equivocation on the central issue here -- that of obligation -- has brought legal theory to the point where leading legal positivists and natural lawyers no longer retain significant differences. Instead, they allege, we are left with the remnant of what has always been, philosophically, a phoney war.

The authors of this lucid and refreshing analysis of the concept of law, arguing from the perspectives of social science and political philosophy, show that jurisprudence must acknowledge that the political, the moral, and the legal are located within a continuum of practical reason, and that law's 'autonomy' from morality cannot entail its 'separation' from it.

Law can be seen to consist not only of rules and decisions, but also of a framework of institutions providing a structure that forms the conditions of its workable existence and acceptance. In this book Olsen and Toddington conduct a philosophical exploration and critique of these conditions: what they are and how they shape our understanding of what constitutes a legal system and the role of justice within it.

Law can be seen to consist not only of rules and decisions, but also of a framework of institutions providing a structure that forms the conditions of its workable existence and acceptance. In this book, Olsen and Toddington conduct a philosophical exploration and critique of these conditions: what they are and how they shape our understanding of what constitutes a legal system and the role of justice within it.